


it came back, alive

by orphan_account



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Exploration, Gen, POV Second Person, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:01:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24054856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: You wander, at first. It feels like a new beginning.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	it came back, alive

**Author's Note:**

> here's my contribution to the game which formed me from my childhood. thank you.

There are three things you know.

First, the beginning. The land is untouched, gentle slopes of plains and sharp peaks of mountains poking out on all sides. Trees are dotted around you on all sides, dark green freckles on an expanse of yellowed grass. You simply wander, at first, plucking flowers from the land and searching for seeds.

It feels like a new beginning. This untouched land stretches out on all sides, the beginning of something new, something grand. You break logs from trees and those down further into planks. Your hands ache from the effort, but you have enough for a house. A home.

There aren’t enough planks for you to make proper benches, or to give sturdy supports to the roof and walls. There is nothing to stop this from collapsing in on you while you sleep. Inside is empty, and dark, but with a careful bit of effort you can move a plank aside and let the moonlight filter in through the gaps.

A feeling, warm and sparking in the dark, bubbles in the back of your head. It feels a little like hope.

Second, the development. The change. You venture down into unexplored cave systems with your rudimentary pickaxe, carving away chunks of rock and coal and organising them into piles. Mold them into torches and tools, the stone into a sword that you strap onto your back. You kill a sheep; guilt wells up at the base of your spine.

Despite that, you remove the wool from the carcass and spin it into blankets and quilts. Those you layer over the bed, one by one until each has been piled up. The meat is split into strips, which you cook over a roaring campfire. You eat. The guilt remains.

Days pass in flurries of motion. Movement, from place to place and goal to goal. Caves lead into more caves, veins of iron and gold spilling out from the walls. You mine each, melt the ore into ingots. Shape each into more tools, more weapons. Descend deeper still: more systems stretch out, deeper and deeper, lava making the air hiss and spit with fury; blue-glowing diamonds poke out from lakes of lava.

You collect them, too. The heat burns at your skin past your armour, begging you to remove the extra layers. (You don’t. Who knows what lurks this deep?) Instead, you pour water over the bubbling lava, and wait the hours away until it cools. Eventually you can prise out diamond from hard stone.

But for now, you whittle away at wood, and sing to nobody.

In the in-between, there is this:

A disc black as pitch with a bone white centre. You place it within the jukebox you’ve recently made, attentive as it clicks and whirrs. The resulting music is soft. Soothing. You yawn, sleeping and stilled, and the tears do not fall. Within you, a nostalgia for something you have never known.

Some days you paint. Canvas stretched out before you, sword placed against it, dye spilling over brushes. Pale blues and greens, pinks and golds and oranges to mock up a sunset. There isn’t enough dye to finish the silhouette over the lake.

Something compels you to look at that first flower. You name it _new beginnings_ with a smile, and return it to the plant pot.

Finally, there is a friend. They don’t tell you their name, only smile at you and present another disk to you, this one red. They are bedecked in diamonds from head to toe, a strand of pale hair falling over the eye. You smile back, nerves dissipating at the gentle press of hands on your shoulders.

You are not alone when you go from the beginning to the end.

They shoot arrows as high as they can, bowstring taut, a new arrow nocked just after they have fired the first. Crystals at the top of the towers burst, flames roaring up the connections between the great dragon and them. You run forwards in bursts of uncanny speed, sword slicing over wings and crest.

In the dragon’s death throes, a wing slashes across your cheek and down your chest. The chestplate (diamond, reinforced with iron fastenings) cuts apart down the middle. The blow reverberates through your bones, knocks you back, further and further and further. You catch a glimpse of pale hair and wide, wide eyes.

You smile, and you let yourself fall. The last thing that you know is the end, and the _new beginnings._

_First, the beginning. A strip of sand stretches out over the horizon, a single tree with the impression of a dark, unmoving eye. The grass sways around you, brushes at your ankles and thighs. You run your hands through cool, clear water._

A single flower on the island, like home. 


End file.
